352 Wild Life in a Southern County. 
CHAPTER XIX. 
COURSE OF THE BROOK—THE BIRDS’ BATHING-PLACE— 
ROACH—-JACK ON THEIR JOURNEYS—THE STICKLEBACK’S: 
NEST— WOODCOCK—-THE LAKE — HERONS—MUSSELS — 
REIGN OF TERROR IN THE LAKE. 
A PLACE where the bank of the brook has been dug 
away so as to form a sloping approach to the water, 
in order that cattle may drink without difficulty, is 
much visited by birds in summer. Some cartloads of 
small stones originally thrown down to make a firm 
floor to the drinking-place have in process of time 
become worn into sand, which the rain has washed 
into the water. This has helped to form a more 
than usually sandy bottom to the water just there. 
Then a bank of mud, or little eyot in the centre. of the 
stream, thickly overgrown with flags, divides the cur- 
rent in two, and the swiftest section passes by the 
drinking-place and brings with it more sand washed: 
out from the mud ; so that just at the edge there is a 
floor of fine sand covered with water, which six inches 
from shore is hardly an inch deep. This is just_the 
bathing-place in which birds delight, and here they 
